Books

Playwright Marsha Norman's first novel The Fortune Teller, about missing children and abortion, adopts a freewheeling, almost primitive approach to narrative. Critic John Leonard says unconventional structure works.

Nadine Gordimer's newest novel, A Sport of Nature, follows a white anti-apartheid worker as she traverses a complicated terrain of sex, race, and politics.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews a new travel memoir that features tigers and moments of painful change and solitude and listening.

Adam Haslett has written two novels and one short story collection, all of them bestsellers. Haslett has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice. Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, says Haslett's new novel, "Mothers And Sons," will likely be another contender for all the glittering prizes.

Ever since Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Native Americans, New York City's character has been defined by money and con artistry. So it is that classic New York stories are always populated by a grifter or two.